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The Metro: Still X-rated, still for sale

The Metro theatre, one of the last remaining porn theatres in North America, has languished on the market for nearly a decade without a buyer

The Metro theatre on Bloor St. W., just east of Christe Pits, has been a Toronto landmark since 1939, and is one of the last porn theatres in North America. (Brendan Kennedy / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Karim Hirje, owner of The Metro, has been trying to sell the money-losing theatre for almost 10 years, but has yet to find a buyer. (Peter Power / Toronto Star file photo)

By Brendan KennedyStaff Reporter

Thu., Dec. 29, 2011

This week, the Star is catching up with some of the fascinating people we’ve covered. Today: Karim Hirji, owner of The Metro, the last theatre in Ontario showing triple-X movies. The Star last wrote about the theatre near Bathurst and Christie Sts. nine years ago, when Hirji planed to sell it for $2 million. Yet, it is still here, and so are the movies.

There is a written caution just inside the doors of The Metro porn theatre, which has nothing to do with the explicit content on its screens or the behaviour of its patrons.

Typed in all caps, the note reads:

“NEWSPAPER REPORTERS PLEASE DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE OWNER FOR ANY INTERVIEWS ANY PICTURES OF THE THEATRE ARE PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING.”

Nosey scribes inquire daily about the historic cinema, says Karim Hirji, owner of Ontario’s last remaining triple-X movie house, a relic of a bygone era when we watched pornography together.

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“I’ve turned down requests from The New York Times,” Hirji boasts.

Publicity has never done him any good, he says — Hirji has been trying to sell the money-losing theatre for almost 10 years, but has yet to find a buyer — and he just doesn’t see the point any more.

Hirji chatted amicably with a reporter, but politely declined to participate in this story.

A curious antiquity with an ever-shrinking clientele, The Metro is hemorrhaging money every day, as it has for most of the past two decades, sinking Hirji deeper and deeper into debt.

The pile of unpaid utility bills grows while there are often more bodies on screen than in the seats.

In a 2002 interview with the Toronto Star — when Hirji first put The Metro up for sale — he said he owed $4 million to creditors, who hold a complex series of mortgages on the property.

The Metro persists not because of a loyal following of devoted connoisseurs or an eccentric philanthropist with a soft spot for vintage erotica, but because Hirji has priced the property out of the market in an attempt to recover his considerable losses.

The 5,450 square-foot space — with two classic 300-seat theatres — is listed for sale at $3.59 million, or $658 per square foot, which even the property’s broker admits is overpriced by almost half.

“The asking price is on the high side,” says Joseph Kang, of Keller Williams Real Estate Service. “$2 million would be a reasonable price.”

Steps away from Christie subway station at 677 Bloor St. W., The Metro will be “a prime development site,” says Steven Alikakos, senior vice-president of DTZ Barnicke, a commercial real estate brokerage. “[But] the costs of turning the space into something usable are just too much to make it work at $3.5 million.”

Building a residential development would require buying the adjacent corner grocery, Alikakos said, and even then the developer would only be able to build eight storeys. “You can’t make money on eight storeys at the price he’s trying to sell it.”

One of the many Art Deco theatres built in Toronto in the 1930s by architects Kaplan and Sprachman, The Metro opened in 1938 as a regular cinema and didn’t start showing porno until the ’70s.

Hirji’s father, part of a wealthy Indo-Persian family who ran successful businesses in East Africa for several generations, moved his family to Canada in 1979 and bought The Metro with $700,000 cash, before handing the property over to his son.

Hirji’s original plan was to show Indian films, but he couldn’t get the rights. Attempts to cater to other ethnic audiences similarly failed, and the theatre always returned to porn, of which it has an extensive collection.

Audiences first dwindled with the advent of the VCR, then plummeted as the Internet became porn’s preferred destination.

In the 1990s, the space was used to show kung-fu movies and as a counter-culture performance space. But again, nothing brought home the bacon.

People still visit the theatre — a handful every day — but for what purpose depends on whom you ask.

The Metro is listed in various online classifieds as both a cruising spot for gay men, and also a meeting place for exhibitionists and voyeurs interested in public sex.

In previous interviews Hirji has denied that any lewd behaviour ever goes on in his theatre.

“Nobody comes to see the movies,” Hirji told the Star in 2002, describing his theatre as a cheap motel where people can relax for a few hours in a heated and air-conditioned space.

On a recent Tuesday morning at The Metro, Hirji’s father, Sadrudin, is working the ticket booth. He regales with stories about the theatre’s glory days in the ’80s, when patrons lined the block and Ron Jeremy appeared at premieres.

“Times have changed,” the elder Hirji says, sweeping around the colour-faded concession stand. “Everything has changed.”

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